


Omegaverse AU Depository

by TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)



Series: Sin [3]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Altered Mental States, Begging, Caretaking, Dubious Consent, Masturbation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mentor/Protégé, Multi, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Oral Sex, marked as non-con to be safe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24268267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl
Summary: I keep starting Alpha/Omega heat fics and then never finishing them. So ... may as well show what I've got.(Nothing in here is non-consensual, but there's a bit of dubious consent from the altered mindset of heat.)Chapter 1: Khalila/Wolfe (Khalila has self-control. Wolfe only has assumptions, and those are fast drowning in his heat)Chapter 2: Santi/Dario (Dario shouldn't be in the office in this state. Santi's going to tell him that.)Chapter 3 Jess/Dario (Surprise heat! Dario is very sad, Jess is frustrated.)Chapter 4: Khalila/Santi & Wolfe (Surprise rut, this time. Slutty omega Santi to the rescue! Wolfe wishes he wasn't here.)Chapter 5: Khalila/Dario (Tiny bit of heat fluff.)Chapter 6: Santi/Wolfe (Wolfe is trying!! to work!!! Could Nic please try to blow his knot more quietly??)
Relationships: Dario Santiago/Khalila Seif, Jess Brightwell/Dario Santiago, Khalila Seif/Christopher Wolfe, Khalila Seif/Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe, Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe, Niccolo Santi/Dario Santiago, Niccolo Santi/Dario Santiago/Khalila Seif
Series: Sin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640218
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Khalila/Wolfe - long

**Author's Note:**

> The heat-sex fics in here run across a range of tones; some are fluffy, some are angsty, some attempt plot. They're not really 'Sin' in the same way that other entries into this verse are; they don't wallow quite as much in age difference, teacher/student forbidden elements.
> 
> There is no Underage stuff in here.

Wolfe fought the urge to slam his front door in Khalila's face. It was an understandable response. He was considerably further into heat than he'd expected, and Khalila wasn't his mate. Her presence could be a threat, and, well, he was primed to consider danger a little more effectively than some omegas. 

He also fought the urge to turn around and drop to his knees for her. Because he was in heat and she was an alpha who he knew and trusted.

She looked small and delicate and demure - and she smelled so incredibly alpha that it was making his stupid traitorous knees wobble. Cinnamon and vanilla, hot and sweet, spicy and smooth. He wanted to nuzzle into one of her pulse points and breathe it in, see which scent overpowered the other. 

He snarled and gripped the doorframe, trapped between the two competing impulses. 

She'd taken a prudent step back and her gaze shifted pacifyingly to somewhere over his left shoulder. That was patronising. He didn't need that. He could look an alpha in the eye. 

"Just like we agreed," he said, trying to not breathe too deeply, as he finally managed to move away from the doorway to allow her to enter. 

"Of course." She glided in after him. "I'll put my scent on some of your toys while you have a shower, and then I'll be on the other side of the bedroom door while you take care of yourself. Look, I brought a book!" She reached into her handbag and brought out a small, cheaply-bound book. 

He stared at her smiling face. She thought she would be able to read with an omega in the throes of heat on the other side of the door? 

_Yes_ , he said irritably to himself, _because she has no more than daughterly affection for me and I am decidedly middle-aged and probably barely fertile._

_Daughterly affection? You think she would offer this to her father?_ mocked the hungry, heated-up part of him again, feeding him images of how it might be to look up at her from his back, feel her hands tight on his thighs. 

His clothes itched on his skin as if they were made from coarse, poor quality wool. He'd got dressed again just for this, mere minutes ago, and yet already he felt sticky and disgusting.

"I'm going for that shower now," he said and spun on his heel. Turning his back on her made his skin tingle and his hackles rise, as if she might chase him down and tackle him and pin him and rip his clothes off and fuck him - 

He slammed the bathroom door so hard that the sound echoed, then somehow managed to shed his trousers and stumble into the shower. No water, yet, but that wasn't his primary concern; he twisted and scrabbled until he had buried three fingers inside himself. 

Squeezing down against the small intrusion made him moan with relief. Made him feel light-headed, weak-kneed again, eager to lie down and let himself be taken.

But, no, that didn't make any sense when the replacement phallus in question was his own fingers. 

_Pull yourself together, Chris_ , he thought, even as he braced his hand back against the hard shower wall and rocked his hips back to try to thrust further in. His wrist and knuckles complained at the angle and the unyielding tile, but he ignored it.

With what felt like his last fragment of sense, he grabbed the faucet, yanked it up to activate the shower-head flow, and yanked it again to turn it to cold. 

The freezing spray woke his higher mind again, and he discovered to his dismay that he hadn't removed his shirt. The fabric was soaked; clinging to him, almost translucent.

He gently brushed one finger over one of his swollen nipples and groaned aloud as every nerve ending in the area sparked into life. What a travesty it was that full heat haze reduced him to nothing more than a hole to fuck when the heat hormones made far more than just penetration pleasurable.

He realised that his other hand was still buried inside himself, still twisting to stretch at his entrance, still jabbing in to press his prostate, and he groaned again, squeezing his aching nipple until the terrible pleasure of it spread down his spine like fire to meet the pulsing waves coming up from his core. 

He imagined that Nic was in here with him, holding him up with his tongue flickered over these sensitive nipples -

An orgasm crashed over him out of the blue and dropped him straight to his knees with a crack of both sound and pain. 

"Ow," he said pathetically to the shower floor. 

But the orgasm from penetration had cleared his head, genuinely this time, as opposed to the false alarm of the cold water, and he took a deep, fortifying breath. Right. Yes. Time to shower.

Getting to his feet again proved to be a several stage process using the shower wall as a brace. Post-orgasm lassitude, heat languor and, as much as he hated to admit it, the tedious complaints of middle-aged joints all played their parts.

He turned the shower temperature to cool, rather than icy cold, and then dithered absurdly over which body cleanser to use. His usual soap? The scrub that dulled pheromones? He was too far gone to care about his own scent, but Khalila might appreciate not being overwhelmed. 

Then again, ha, she had her book. 

She had her book and she was going to easily ignore him all through his peak just like they'd agreed, because Nic was away and he was dealing with it alone, like he'd done before many times. Alone. Unwanted. 

His chest ached with some sort of bitter, taut emotion and his hand moved away from the very sensible, bland scrub. It closed instead around a pungent ointment that he disliked, but which drove Nic absolutely wild.

Just a dot or two would do, on his wrists and neck. Enough to make him appealing. 

Nic would wholeheartedly agree, if he were here, if but then again if Nic were here, Wolfe wouldn't be struggling to keep his head together, wouldn't  _ need _ to keep his head together, would just need to let his alpha throw him down and bruise him with the force of his fucking ... 

With an effort, he uncurled his hand from around the little glass bottle of musk and grabbed instead for the neutral, pheromone-dulling scrub.

He cursed himself for a fool as he briskly rubbed the soft granular paste over all his scent points.

No. He did not want to appeal to Khalila - if such a thing were even possible with the aid of a mere body cleanser. No, he'd need to rewind time for that, he thought. To be in the full bloom of his twenties.

(He hadn't thought of himself as blooming, back then. Ah, hindsight.)

Perhaps she might have found him appealing then. A fellow Artifex Scholar. They might have studied together in the Reading Room. She might have leaned over one day, in the middle of an interesting and intellectual conversation, and given him a demure little bite on the side of his neck. 

“You smell nice,” she might whisper. “May I?” And her small, delicate hands might wander under his clothes, as he sat there for everyone to see, sliding lower and lower down his back, where he wouldn’t be able to hide how excited he was by her attention ...

He tore his mind out of the ridiculous fantasy to find that his own hands had wandered in line with his thoughts. His thighs were slick and maybe he could just about convince himself that was water and soap, but not when he reached his hot, sensitive centre and it engulfed all four fingers, right to the knuckle. Drawing a long, slow breath, he touched his chest again with his other hand, tracing his puffy dark areolae and shivering at their sensitivity. Imagined her teeth on them, tugging so gently to begin with. 

He wallowed for a little while, luxuriating in the slow-spreading pleasure. 

Clear as a bell, he could hear Nic chiding in his ear, "This is why you need company, sweetheart." In theory, lucid periods were useful for rehydrating, checking for discomfort, and general checking-in. Left to his own devices, Wolfe was definitely prone to overindulging in the sensuality of heat sensitivity until the haze of heat descended anew and obscured his window of opportunity.

"Anyway," he muttered to the Nic of his imagination, "I don't have company, do I?"

His back ached and his wrists ached from his attempts to shove his fingers into himself. To be expected, really. But he didn't have an alpha to fuck him so he'd just have to put up with it unless he wanted to spend his heat howling with empty misery. 

A shudder made him nearly lose his balance on the wet floor. _Don't think about that, Christopher_.

He'd had enough of those types of heats. This wasn't one of those. He wasn't ... there. Nic was just away for a week. He'd be fine. 

Out of the shower, he gave himself the most cursory of wipes with the towel. What was the point, when he was only going straight to his bedroom and all of his soft towels were already waiting in the nest?

When he opened the door, Khalila's scent overwhelmed him. It permeated every breath that he took, abusing his receptors with heat then soothing them again with soft sweetness. 

He opened his mouth wide, gulping at the scent as if it were tangible. It had been cinnamon before, was it more like ginger now, perhaps? Sharper. Hotter. And the sweetness; still vanilla, yes, but richer and creamier than before. Every other sense took a back seat as his mind delegated the space to analysing and processing these exact permutations. 

One obvious piece of analysis made him whine; this was a scent from an aroused alpha. 

Vaguely he was aware of folding his body down to his hands and knees, showing her how willing he was, how ready he was. Forehead on the floor, baring the back of his neck, raising his rear into the air and spreading his legs to bare his wet, aching entrance. His skin prickled at being exposed like that but he couldn't remember why; it was such a relief to relax and wait for his alpha to claim him - 

He yowled with displeasure as an awful dry, bitter smell assaulted his nostrils, and scrabbled backwards until his back hit the wall. Couldn't escape it. It followed him. 

His mind cleared a little under the vicious astringent odour. Enough to feel his knees against the hard floorboards, to sense Khalila crouching next to him. She was speaking. He couldn't quite follow her words, but the tone was calm and that helped him not to lose himself in panic over the cloth he could feel pressed lightly against his mouth and nose. The cloth was soaked with something foully bitter. Horrible. Disgusting. Unfair. 

Slowly, her words began to appear from the soothing blur of sound, sounding a little song-song as if she had repeated herself many times. 

"That's it, Wolfe, just breathe deeply. This will help you think more clearly. You don't want to do this. You have a plan."

A plan. Yes. Bedroom. Toys. But oh for the love of Ipet, it was difficult to think through the haze. Chills crept in waves over his exposed skin, making him restless. 

"Please," he mumbled. He didn't know what for. He swiped at the cloth covering his face, and found her hand, her wrist. Tried to pull it towards his mouth to mingle their scent. That would help get rid of this terrible, terrible smell. It was making his mouth dry out. 

" _ No _ ." The word was firm and loud and carried a growl underneath it. An alpha command. His particular reaction to heat hormones made Wolfe so susceptible to that kind of growl that he had released her wrist before his mind had even processed the words overlaying the sound. "Oh, really? I have to do the voice?" He ignored the light gabble of words. " _ Stand up _ ." 

The wall helped. The small of his back throbbed as he staggered to his feet. His inner thighs were cold and damp, with thin trails spreading right down his legs. There. Standing.

He made a chirping sound to draw her attention to his obedience. He deserved something for that, didn't he? Just a little something, a touch, he wasn't greedy - 

\-  _ oh, he was _ \- 

"Oh, Wolfe, you really should have organised something at least a day ago, shouldn't you?"

He mewed with delight as she put an arm around his back.

"Come on, let's go to the bedroom. I've got your bag. Here's your towel. Put it round you, just like ... no, hold it.  _ Hold this _ ," she growled. "Ugh, my throat hurts. Stupid alpha timbre.  _ Come with me _ ."

Yes. Of course his alpha wanted him to come with her. He walked docilely alongside her, purring with pleasure at the feeling of her wrist and hand against the bare skin of his back. That was better. Now they would smell at least a little like each other. He wished her scent was smeared somewhere he could touch, though. Like his neck, or his stomach, or his thighs. 

Being guided around was reassuring. One less thing to concern himself with. He found himself dragging his footsteps a little, just to make her tighten her grip and put pressure against him. She muttered something that didn't matter to him -

"If you were Dario, you'd be on a leash by now,"

\- and opened the bedroom door. 

He made a low, relieved sound at the sight of his nest, and surged towards it. As he landed amongst the soft pillows, he looked back over his shoulder at her and whined uncertainly. How did she want him to be positioned? For the fucking? It must be going to happen soon, surely; she smelt so deliciously aroused. 

Instead of crawling onto the bed to join him, she sat on the edge of it and hefted a black bag onto her lap. He wriggled onto his back, propped up against cushions. Was that better? Was that what she wanted? He whined again, soft and small, just like he was right now with his underbelly exposed, his neck exposed, everything bare and vulnerable. 

"Ssh." She waved a hand in his direction. He caught a strong bitter scent and wrinkled his nose, cringing away. It gave him a degree of lucidity, though, and he quickly curled himself into a ball so that she couldn't see his .. his  _ everything _ . Embarrassment added to the stifling heat saturating his body.

"Sorry, Khalila," he said hoarsely. A little louder than he'd intended - trying to drown out the deafening thoughts which demanded his due. 

She inclined her head and smiled sweetly at him. "Don't be sorry. Well, apart from not telling me in advance how fast and far you were going to fall into heat, but you can't do anything about that now, can you?"

It took his fogged mind far too long to puzzle out the full meaning of her words, so he lazily gave in and let his instincts hear the mild disapproval in her soft voice. He didn't want to disappoint her. He wanted her to see him as a worthy partner. He whimpered and curled up even more tightly.

"Ssh. It's all right, you're all right. Here. Get yourself started." He took what he was handed; a polished wooden dildo. He eyed it with distaste. It was too light. His body was screaming for more than that. "No? Not that one?" He shook his head mutely. "Can you choose, or must I?"

She held the bag wide open, closer to him. He marshalled his consciousness from the soft, simple fog of heat and peered inside.

Praise Ra, the perfect choice fell straight into his fumbling hand. A thickly curving piece of marble, cool to the touch of his feverish skin.

He stroked it and pressed it to his cheek. It smelled like her, spicy and mouth-watering. He purred.

Idly, as she said something or other, he ran the dildo over his lips and sucked on it. His nether regions throbbed as if one orifice was linked to the other.

"All right. Well done. Now, why don't you lie back and get yourself comfortable again?"

He slid his tongue over the stone. Hm. Was that why his alpha was delaying her claim? Did she want some pleasure for herself first? Maybe he could concentrate enough for that. 

"Talk about only listening to your libido ...  _ Wolfe. Lie down _ ."

She leaned up over him then, her scent a beautiful hot mixture of arousal and irritation, and he unfolded for her just as helplessly as any flower to the sunlight. 

"There." She folded a light, soft sheet over him. He plucked at it fretfully. Why was she covering him up? Did she not want him?

He screwed his eyes shut. Of course she didn't want him. She had a book, didn’t she? A book. Wolfe would ignore a lot for a good book, yes, but this, no, not  _ this _ .

But, what was this, to her? A favour? A chore? She was so young and beautiful. He was none of those things. He could barely even detect his scent underneath her virility.

He should get on with fucking himself. That was all he was going to get. He wasn’t worth more to his alpha. 

That was a terrible thought to a hormone-soaked brain. He went cold and prickly all over, and hastened to bring his chosen phallus down between his legs.

Then the cool marble breached him and other things became unimportant. 

All of his muscles flexed and trembled. His pulse boomed in the cave of his skull, flashing red in the darkness behind his eyelids as his closed eyes rolled helplessly. 

\- full fullfull  _ full-  _

Other thoughts faded away for a while. 

Some time later, his senses returned. That wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience; the bedsheets were tacky with drying fluid and he ached.

Oh, Ra the ram of the west, how he  _ ached _ .

He looked at the dildo, a thick, solid chunk of marble and couldn't help but wince on behalf of most of his body. His right wrist was on fire and as he gingerly sat up there was not only the expected discomfort from underneath, but also a tight throbbing at his lower back.

Well. Too old for this after all, just like he'd thought.

Perhaps he should have picked something less heavy, no matter how satisfying it had felt to his instantly-gratified heat-brain. 

Said heat-brain helpfully replayed just how satisfying it had felt to be full, finally, and he slumped back into the nest to enjoy the memory.

His left hand, the one that didn't hurt, investigated his entrance; tender to the touch but it could take two fingers without pain and left no blood on his fingers. Good. The slightest brush against his prostate sent echoing, unpleasant shivers of overstimulation all over his body.

That made him wince, though more with irritation than discomfort. Overworking himself after just one peak, with several more still ahead, showed just how utterly he had allowed himself to sink into heat haze. Unacceptable. Irresponsible. Pathetic. 

He drew his hand back up his body to his nipples, puffy and sensitive still. He played with them for a few absent-minded minutes, gently rolling them between his fingers. The pleasure was mild enough to be a tease after the mindless inferno of a heat peak. He just wished Nic was here to - 

His mind hiccoughed over that, catching him back up to reality. 

No Nic.

But not completely alone.

Khalila.

Supervising. 

Babysitting, snarled part of him, bitterly.

Pitying you, whispered another part.

As if thinking of her had been a summons, his Codex drew his attention, indicating he had received a message. 

His Codex? It sat on his dresser. He hadn't left it there, had he? He didn't remember. The location of his codex had hardly been the uppermost concern in his mind.

He gritted his teeth and stood to open it. 

_ Food and drink is waiting for you, just tell me when _ , it read, with a little doodle of a flower. Very Khalila. She must be able to detect his changing scent even in the other room. 

Standing aggravated the throb in his back into something sharper, and there was a thought-devouring, hungry, echoing discomfort between his legs. He felt cold and shaky and alone.

All of those things would be easily cured by -

_ \- sinking back into his cozy nest and plunging that thick dildo deep into himself again -  _

\- by having something to eat and drink, for fuck's sake, Christopher! 

_ Please _ , he wrote. Even that made his wrist blaze with pain.

The knock came before he had even made it back to the bed.

"May I come in?"

"One minute," he called. His voice snagged in his throat as he raised it, and he realised how thirsty he was.

It took him a moment or two to settle on the bed, to weigh up his aches and assign them levels of importance in positioning. Then he dragged the loose bedsheet over his lap, as if he had any dignity left to protect.

"Come in."

Khalila shuffled through the door awkwardly, clutching a pitcher of water, a glass and a large platter. By the time that he'd thought to help -

\- tried to rise,

\- remembered his nudity,

-considered wrapping the sheet around him as a skirt,

\- she was already inside the room. He watched with trepidation as she perched the pitcher on the dresser and started determinedly tugging at the underwear and accessories chest to move it closer to the bed. The laden platter wobbled in her upraised hand.

"Just put it on the bed, it's a mess anyway." He coughed to clear his throat. 

"Oh! If you're certain." She placed the platter in front of him. They didn't even own a platter, had she brought it over from her own residence?

He stared at it for longer than strictly necessary, mastering his facial expression. He was certain that when he looked up, she would be looking at him anxiously - was it to his liking?

Just as his higher mind would feel terrible at making Khalila feel inadequate, his lower, heated thoughts, metaphorically drooling at the fresh influx of cinnamon and vanilla scent, didn't want to put off his alpha, who was only trying to provide for him. 

She'd clearly tried hard. There was a cornucopia of savoury and sweet finger-foods spread out in front of him, several of them tempting even through the appetite-dulling effect of heat. 

It wasn't her fault that she couldn't cook, and so all of her offerings came either still in attractive paper wrappings or visibly pre-prepared. 

It wasn't her fault that Wolfe was used to Nic peeling himself away from their nest to retrieve fresh homemade delicacies that he had made himself previously, so that even eating was deluged in the pheromones of his bonded mate. 

It certainly wasn't her fault that Wolfe usually sprawled in the nice warm nest like a wastrel and ate the food straight from Nic's hands and sucked the flavour of each mouthful from Nic's fingertips. 

And it wasn't her fault that drawing these parallels made him miss Nic so much that the hard, cold blow of it in his chest momentarily outweighed all his other aches.

No, none of that was her fault, and he would sit upright like a civilised person and eat as much of the no doubt horrendously expensive food as his antsy heat-stomach could tolerate. 

"Thank you, dear. This looks delicious." He smiled up at her, and caught her facial expression in the middle of rearranging itself. He cursed himself. He'd probably stared at the food for too long. It was always very, very difficult to deceive Khalila. 

"Well, eat up. I brought a variety of things. Nic said you're a picky heat eater." She bustled off to the dresser and fussed with the pitcher, pouring him a glass of water. 

'Bustling' and 'fussing' were usually unkind and inappropriate words to use about self-possessed, thoughtful Khalila, but this was very definitely a 'minimising eye contact' sort of action. 

When he next inhaled, he noticed the new bitter note, a sad note, to her scent, and that feeling of being punched in the chest by an icy fist only intensified. 

Congratulations, you absolute bastard. 

Ignoring the stupid fucking voice in the back of his mind that insisted he had to present on his knees again and seduce his alpha back to him, he said,

"There's enough for two here, easily. Join me?"

She turned her head quickly enough for the surprise in her expression to be real. "Of course." She sat at the foot of the bed, with the platter between them, and immediately scooped falafel into her mouth.

Resigned, he reached out to grab the first thing that caught his eye, but she tapped the back of his hand with one finger.

Anticipatory shivers raced up his arm from her brief, gentle touch, and for the thousandth time in his life Wolfe wished that he wasn't so susceptible to the effects of heat hormones.

"Have a drink first." 

He rolled his eyes before he could help it, but then he downed the glass of wonderfully icy-cold water without stopping to breathe. 

Her eyes brightened when he handed the glass back sheepishly. 

It occurred to him too late that he'd made that a silent request, the sort of thing he would have done to Nic without a second's thought. But Khalila obviously knew him well enough for that, because by the time he’d worried about it he was already watching her refill the glass.

A small, fretful part of his mind complained about seeing his alpha facing away from him. Ignoring him. He told himself to shut the fuck up, then sighed and placated his instincts as best as he could by reminding himself that Khalila was looking after him. 

Heat hormones made him want to purr at that, just a little. He did nothing of the sort. 

He drank the second glass just as quickly, half-drowning himself and spilling drips everywhere, but by the third glass he could sip sensibly. The food started to look more appealing now that he had hydrated himself, and he tentatively nibbled on a slice of mango. It was more water than food, anyway. An easy start. 

“I didn’t think you would let me in here to share food. Thank you,” Khalila said, brushing crumbs off her dress into her hand. 

Wolfe was inexplicably irritated by the careful attention she paid to every speck.

“Just drop the crumbs on the floor. I’ll clear up later.” 

She gave him a scolding look. “Or I’ll clean this small thing up now.” 

All she did was tip the crumbs carefully back onto the platter, anyway. She wasn't attending to their nest. It wasn't her nest. She was just being tidy. She was Khalila. She was a tidy person. 

Wolfe munched on a date, as if that could fill the lonely ache in his gut. Then her earlier words registered in his mind. “You didn’t think I’d share food?” He raised his eyebrows. ”What did you expect me to do, curl around the hoard and snarl at you until you went away?”

Khalila pulled an embarrassed face around the ball of spiced rice she’d just carefully popped into her mouth. “I expected you to not want any of it.” A smile flashed across her face, bright and beautiful and sadly fleeting, and Wolfe gestured at her to elaborate on whatever thought had caused that. “Oh. Nothing. I … Dario likes food in his lulls. A lot. Last time, he kept going back to the table for more and we di-” She stopped herself mid-sentence, her entire body twisting with embarrassment. The air suddenly smelled strongly of over-sweet vanilla. 

“You didn’t make it back to the bed?” It was a lot easier to tease Khalila over her embarrassment than it was to confront his own. Easier to tease her about her mild tales than to remind himself that he was sitting in front of her naked apart from a sheet and covered in his own sweat and emissions.

Ugh. He’d let the thought peek in. Now he felt itchy and exposed and ugly. Khalila was right. Why had he let her sit with him. Asked for it, even? Surely she wouldn't have done it if he hadn’t asked? He must stink of exertion and musk - it must surely overwhelm anything vaguely enjoyable left in his cursed middle-aged pheromones. 

“I should shower.” He swivelled and made as if to stand, but his back made a sharp, hot-poker complaint as he got halfway up. 

He didn’t make a sound in response to the pain. He never did when there were others in the vicinity, even though several years had passed since a gasp or a groan (or a scream, or any of the endless repertoire of noises one could make in reaction to pain) might have resulted in ... consequences. 

Still he must have given it away, because Khalila’s hands were on him and her voice was in his ears, asking whether he was all right. 

“Fine. My back just twinged.” He sat back down and scrabbled for the cover of the sheet again. She moved with him. One of her hands was on his back, thankfully above the painful area, and the other was tight on his forearm. The touches should have bothered him, but they didn’t. 

“Is it better now?” Her voice was low and concerned. He took a breath in to answer. The air was suddenly threaded with her scent, balanced and mellow. Warm. 

“Fine,” he repeated, and heard the breathy way the words emerged. Heat spread under his skin. He wanted her to move her hands, to soothe the sudden tingles under his skin with caresses.

Fuck. One bit of care and contact from Khalila and his hormones spiked again. 

He locked himself motionless as his imagination eagerly presented him with a possible scenario. His alpha telling him to lie back in the nest. Guarding him in his vulnerability. Hand-feeding him. Petting him all over until he slipped back into peak heat so smoothly and easily he didn’t even notice … 

“I’m fine,” he said yet again, forcing sharpness into his voice, slapping aside the soft, floating languor growing inside him. He took another deep breath. This time it was full of cinnamon-ginger spice.

She stroked his arm again. “You’re just as bad as Jess. Stop fighting your peak.” Her hands disappeared and his skin crawled with their absence, so badly that the hairs on his limbs rose. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Her back to him again. He couldn’t bear it again, not with heat simmering so shallowly under his skin. 

_ Don’t go _

_ Don’t leave me _

_ Touch me, my alpha _

“I didn’t know you’d partnered with Jess, too,” he blurted. Anything but what was inside his head. Anything to keep her in the room. 

Khalila spun to face him with a whirl of her colourful dress, the whites of her eyes flashing, her body tensing as if to pounce. 

Her aroused ginger scent overwhelmed him. Drowned him. 

His head swam and he flopped backwards onto his elbows. Beads of sweat itched at his temples, his underarms, his groin. He tilted his neck back to bare his throat. 

Her nostrils flared as she, too, inhaled deeply.

“Yes. I’ve helped Jess through a heat or two. I wouldn’t have risked this without some practise.” Her voice sounded distant, but every word that she spoke seemed to return her to normal, until at the end of the sentence she smiled at him. A little cinnamon sweetness trickled back into the air.

He gazed up at her helplessly. Where had her arousal gone? That stunning, beautiful look of possession? Had he seen any of that at all? Was it real? It had to be real; his hormones had spiked so fiercely that he could barely feel the bed underneath him. 

He tried to pat his face to wake himself up, but the moment that he moved his hands they gravitated to his hot, pulsing centre and he had to clench his fists to keep them still. He felt like he would orgasm from even a feather-like touch, like he might do it just from thinking too hard about the way she had been poised.

“Wolfe? Do you want me to use this again, or do you want me to leave?” Her words barely made sense. It felt like they were filtering through a sponge. 

_ Want? I want  _ you _ , please ... _

His eyes were more helpful; she was holding up a square of cloth - he could smell that disgusting liquid on it from here. 

He snarled at it, instinctively. It was  _ so _ unpleasant to his heightened senses. 

But it was the only thing that would get him out of this torpid mess he had descended into. 

With effort, he stretched one hand out. “Please?”

“Please what?” 

'Please' what? 'Please.' so many things. He knew the question she was asking but he couldn't bring himself to try and answer, didn't dare to start a sentence with a plea in fear of the inappropriate fear which would spill forth.

After a moment or two of his silence, she took a step backwards. 

He whined, sharp and desperate and utterly without thought. 

A step forwards. 

He relaxed and mewed to call her further forwards. 

She took a few business-like steps forwards and pressed the cloth to his face. “ _ Breathe _ ,” she ordered in another lovely alpha purr-growl.

He obeyed - and then wriggled backwards, shaking his head, growling at the bitter stink as if that might make it go away. 

“That makes my nose hurt,” he complained, then breathed a sigh of relief that he could complain verbally again. 

“I know. It’s very effective. I’ll have to thank Jess.”

Wolfe turned that over for a moment or two, finding several implications as his mind awoke. “You’ve used this on Jess?”

Khalila shook her head. Perspiration glimmered faintly on her forehead and upper lip. “He uses it on himself. He’s … disturbingly functional during his heat.” 

Wolfe gritted his teeth through a wave of jealousy. He used to be good at heats. 

Khalila was looking at him, head slightly tilted. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, having intense heats,” she said, in a kind tone that made Wolfe want to snarl at her. “I could have prepared better if I’d known, that’s all. Dario is similarly inclined. It’s just that we can’t exactly renegotiate with you so compromised.” 

"Renegotiate?” he repeated faintly. What did she mean? What was there to renegotiate? She didn’t want him. By Ra, she had had enough opportunity to just … take him, if she had wanted to. He'd done enough lying there like an idiot, all open and defenceless and needy. 

He must have imagined her reaction earlier. 

“Never mind.” He realised he was still slumped onto his back like an idiot, so sat up and grabbed an unappetising stuffed palm leaf from the neglected platter, still laid on the bed. 

“One quick thing, then. While you’re coherent.” Her voice turned small and embarrassed again, and he raised his eyebrows while he mechanically chewed the food in his mouth. It took her a moment to articulate her question. “Have you … checked yourself over?”

He winced at the sudden intimate question, and so did she. 

Yes, with the peak so close to rolling over him again, this was the point where Nic would usually push him over onto his stomach, propped up with a few pillows, and check his entrance thoroughly for any damage. And then check some more. Just for the pleasure of it, until that pleasure merged with the tide of Wolfe’s heat and he dived joyfully under it.

He swallowed the mouthful, and it landed as a cold ache in his chest. 

No more thinking about Nic. It wasn’t fair on either of them. 

“Yes. Fine. I’ve already - checked. I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Right. Good. Um.” Her scent was excessively sugary sweet again with embarrassment. Too cloying for Wolfe’s taste. Easier to resist. Easier to watch as she got up and walked away, saying, “I’ll get you some more water.”

The shocking effect of the acrid oil didn’t last very long at all, and Wolfe had to remind himself to reach for the glass of water when Khalila proffered it. 

Every inch of his skin felt sensitive, and even brushing his hand along innocent areas like his arm made him weak with the need to be filled. 

“Thank you,” he said firmly, without making eye contact with her, and sipped the water. It was very cold in his mouth and sliding down his throat. The chill should have refreshed him, but instead he started shivering as his body assumed it needed to heat him up. Heat. By Ra, he didn’t need any more heat. 

One of his hands escaped his self-control and reached out for Khalila. He’d stop shivering if she would just touch him. Just mingle their scents a bit. That was all. 

His questing hand met her wrist and he purred and drew it close to his mouth and nose. Her scent was spicy enough to make his sinuses burn. No sweetness left there. Good. He lapped at her pulse point and purred some more. 

“ _ Wolfe _ .” Alpha growl.

Must pay attention to his alpha. But most of his attention was much more usefully diverted, surely, in mingling their scent? He took her fingers into his mouth and sucked happily. 

“Would you like me to stay for this peak? Keep you company?”

That caught his attention well and truly. He stared at her and fumbled for coherent thoughts to counteract the delighted reaction of his body. 

Why didn’t he want her to fuck him? He’d had reasons, hadn’t he?

Reasons seemed impossibly far away. Shelved without a ladder. Did the reasons matter? Wouldn’t he remember them, if they were that important? Wouldn’t he be able to think past the shivering, aching emptiness if his reasons not to be fucked by her were valid and meaningful?

And he didn’t remember and his entire body was one throbbing, itching mess of need that captured almost every thought in his head, and so obviously the reasons didn’t matter at all. 

“Please,” he said. He couldn’t figure out how to say anything else, but there was a fragment of himself screaming about ambiguity, and the anxiety made him whine aloud. “Please? Khalila? Please?”

Maybe she couldn't tell, with his substandard, ageing hormonal cycle. Maybe she didn't know how badly he needed her. He fumbled himself backwards across the mattress into his nest. 

(It was so messy. He hadn’t neatened it up during his lucid period. Lazy idiot. She would hate it, he was sure.) 

The sheet slithered to the floor as he moved, exposing him. He felt shame at that, but only a remnant. Mainly desperation. He sprawled onto his back amongst the messy pillows and spread his legs wider, enough to make his hips ache a little, and mewed in entreaty.

“Here.” She put something in his hand. He blinked up at her, stupefied. Her ginger scent was so strong that it made saliva flood his mouth. “It's yours. Go on. Make yourself feel better.”

He squeezed the thing in his hand. Hard. Smooth. Recall clicked into his head, just barely, just a rush of sense-memory from his previous peak, and he obediently moved his heavy hand between his splayed legs, towards his pulsing, needy entrance. 

“That’s it. That’s good.” Her voice was soft and husky and her scent was eye-wateringly spicy with arousal. It settled his bewildered instincts. It would do. He had something to fuck himself with, and his alpha was happy. It would do. 


	2. Santi/Dario - short

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dario has an overdue paper. Santi wants Dario to get out of his office and go home. Why? Well, because Dario's in heat ...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i have several chapters prewritten  
> me: i should post them every thursday :) organisation. :) schedule :)  
> me by monday: WHERE IS MY VALIDATION???

Santi sighed. "Come on, Dario."

“I'm fine," Dario said stubbornly. "I just need to get this finished."

Santi sighed and folded his arms ."How long will it take?"

"I ... uh ..." Dario swiped a hand over his damp forehead. His hair was already wet near his temples.

"You don't know, do you? Because you can't concentrate, can you?"

"Shut the fuck up. I'm fine. I can do this." But seconds later, Dario squirmed in his seat. "Look, haven't you got better things to do with your time? Commander?"

Santi rolled his eyes. "I do, as it happens. But nonetheless, I don't think I can leave you here on your own, being an absolute idiot with no regard for your own safety."

Dario drew himself up indignantly. "I am being safe! This door has a lock!"

"Mm, and how long before you start convincing yourself that leaving it open and ajar is perfectly sensible?"

"Don't be so fucking insulting." Dario picked up his pen again.

"Don't be so fucking stupid."

Dario glared at Santi, then returned to staring at the half-finished page in front of him.

* * *

An hour later, Dario flung himself to his feet. "'M done." His eyes glazed over, and Santi reached him just in time to catch him as he wobbled.

"Got you."

"'M fine."

"Shut up." God, holding Dario in his arms was a whole new level of self-control. One that Santi wasn't sure he had. His thick chocolatey scent in such close quarters made Santi's head spin, and his cock come fully erect.

Dario shoved his nose into Santi's neck. "You smell good," he mumbled, and licked the scent gland there. Pleasure shot down Santi's spine, along with a chill. Dario was even further gone than he thought.

"Jesus, you should be at home." His lips brushed Dario's ear. His next words slipped straight out of his hindbrain: "You must be so wet."

Dario pressed closer. Then he shook his head sharply. "Yes, true, if rude. I'm ruining these trousers. And exposing you to unfair stimulation. I'm sorry." He took a slow, deep breath.

Santi couldn't help but copy it, which was a very bad idea because now he felt like he was drowning in heat scent.

"Come on," Santi said. His voice sounded hoarse. "You need to go home."

"No! This is due tomorrow! Need to check ..." Dario's protestations trailed off into unhappy whining. His chocolate scent turned a touch bitter.

"Even Vargas would have granted you an extension for a heat, you idiot."

"Stop calling me an idiot."

"Stop being one, then." Santi wanted to bite Dario's ear as he said that. Damn heat pheromones. "Come on," he tried again, with the fraying remnants of his self-control. "I know Khalila's away, but wouldn't you be much more comfortable at home?”

One of Santi's hands stroked firmly and reassuringly, up and down Dario's back. The other gripped the back of Dario's neck. Up and down, up and down. Even through his shirt and waistcoat, Dario was hot and damp to the touch.

"I hear you have a whole room all to yourself," Santi continued. "You've got everything you need in there, I'm sure. Isn't that better than sitting in here and getting more and more stressed?"

Dario had buried his face back in Santi's neck by the end of the first sentence. By the last he was mewing and gently pushing his hips against Santi.

Santi's cock throbbed at the soft, needy heat behaviour. With an inner strength he didn't realise he possessed, he tried to detangle their embrace and step away.

Dario yowled his disapproval and pushed hard into Santi, wrapping one leg around him.

"No!" Santi snapped, and grabbed Dario's shoulders.

For a long moment when their eyes met, Santi wasn't sure Dario was seeing him. His eyes were huge and dark and glazed with heat haze. But then he blinked and the haze cleared.

"Just take the edge off, Nic" he said. His words came out fast and frantic. "I know you want to." He pushed his hips against Santi again, pushing their erections together. "Then I can get back to work. Just. Just one thing. One time."

Even as Santi's self-control swayed like a tree in a storm, he noted how ridiculous that idea was. Had Dario never done a heat on his own?

"It doesn't work like that," he said, even as he allowed Dario to sink, hot and trembling, back into his embrace. "It wouldn't make you any clearer-headed."

"Please," Dario mumbled. He rocked himself back and forth against Santi, breathing heavily.

Surely Dario had to know that stimulating his erection was only going to make him feel worse? Santi's one remaining rational brain cell got shouted at by the rest of his brain, which was greedy for more sensation.

"Please, Nic? Please?" Dario rubbed his cheek hard against Santi's shoulder and whined like he was in pain.

“Ssh,” Santi said, taking Dario’s head in his hands and kissing him to try and calm him down.

He'd expected Dario to kiss him back fiercely and frantically, but instead, quite the opposite happened. After the first moment of surprise, Dario's lips gave way without a fight, and his tongue moved only in reaction to Santi's. His scent was so thick in the air that Santi could taste dark chocolate as if he were eating it.

It should have put him off, Santi thought distantly, something so different from the eager activity in Chris' kisses, but in fact it just encouraged him to be firmer. Gripping Dario's head in his hands, and almost fucking Dario's mouth with his tongue - oh, and he wasn't the only one imagining that analogy, because Dario sucked on his tongue in response.

He'd long forgotten his original aim to calm Dario down by the time that he noticed it appeared to have been successful. Dario was getting heavier and heavier in his arms, leaning more and more of his weight on Santi.

With reluctance he pulled away from that soft, passive mouth. Dario whined and craned his head forwards - or tried to, but Santi was still holding him tightly. Dario's eyes were huge and glazed again, and this time he didn't blink the stupefaction away quickly, but whined again, and licked his lips and shifted his hips.

"Ssh," Santi said again. "You need to go home."

Even as he said it, though, he knew it was too late for that. Dario was far too vulnerable in this state to be allowed on the streets, even with Santi escorting him.

Dario didn't protest, merely leaned forwards and lapped at Santi's neck, and whimpered, "Please?"

"All right." Santi pulled their bodies flush together again. "All right, lad. You win."

Dario beamed and wriggled with joy, so Santi employed the same method that had worked before, kissing Dario hard and wet and filthy until the omega was leaning against him, panting and pliant.

"Can you walk?" he asked as he drew away again. "Can you go to the desk chair?"

Dario nodded, but didn't move from where he was nuzzling and mouthing Santi's neck. Every touch of his lips made Santi's cock feel like it was going to burst.

"Go to the desk chair, Dario." He put some command into his voice.

Dario raised his head. Santi watched his pupils dart as he tried to pull himself out of the heat haze, but he seemed far too deep now for that to be successful.

"Yes," he managed eventually, as slurred as if he were drunk. He walked unsteadily to the desk and braced himself against it for a moment.

Then he looked over his shoulder at Santi, and Santi saw to his surprise a familiar calculating look in Dario's suddenly much more alert eyes, just before Dario dropped to his knees and used the desk chair to put himself in a more comfortable version of a typical heat presentation.

For a moment, Santi was stupefied himself. The very air he breathed was saturated with aphrodisiac particles, and there was a beautiful omega with their back arched and their rear high; a plea and an invitation and a seduction all at once.

Thoughts raced across his mind's eye. How good it would feel to take down those obstructive trousers and drive his aching cock into Dario's entrance, where it belonged. Beautiful, fertile omega, ready to take everything he could give them ...

He was almost at the desk before he regained his senses, driven by the cold reminder of potential pregnancy. He was randy enough that the thought was still a turn-on, but with rationality came the reminder that this was _Dario_.

Dario, who had just showed distinctly more rationality in that positioning than he'd shown before.

Deceptive as ever, that boy.

Unease turned into hot temper, and he swung a hand hard at Dario's oh-so tempting arse.

Dario yelped, and looked over his shoulder with a surprised and wounded expression.

"Be glad that wasn't your face," Santi growled. Growling felt good, right now. He slapped Dario's arse again. "You manipulative little shit."

"I’m not ... I wasn't ..." Dario shook his head. He looked all vulnerable and pathetic, with his big eyes and his kiss-swollen lips, but Santi wouldn't trust him as far as he could throw him right now. "Please, Nic. just a quick fuck. That's all. I need it." His voice was ragged.

Santi snorted. "You think you're getting my cock, after that?" He reached for Dario's neck. Dario moaned and arched his back further as Santi's hand touched the back of his neck, but that wasn't Santi's target.

He dug his fingers into the gland at the base of Dario's throat. Dario made a strangled sound. Santi ignored it and concentrated on what he was after.

Yes, the heat pheromones somehow got even stronger. Tunnel vision started to darken his vision, his brain removing any output that didn't involve the omega in front of him.

Yes, his fingers were coated with thick, fragrant heat oil.

Good. Dario hadn't somehow tricked him even more than he'd thought. He was deep in heat.

Santi leaned over further, entranced by the overwhelming scent. He would indulge himself. One final check.

He sank his teeth into that spot on Dario's neck, causing a heartfelt moan from Dario. Yes. That tasted right. It swelled under his touch, and seeped glistening oil as fast as he licked it away.

Yes. He'd checked. Dario hadn't utterly fooled him.

He was in heat and his skin was warm and soft and he smelt mouth-wateringly good and he was poised just right, just right, perfect - 

His hand curled around Dario's throat and his body settled over Dario's, and his hips tucked against Dario's arse and began to roll.

He licked and licked, until the seepage slowed. Then he bit the gland again to prompt more delicious, intoxicating fluid. The sound of his own purr echoed in his ears.

He thrust harder against Dario, and couldn’t quite work out why nothing was feeling as good as it should be.

He nearly disappeared inside his own haze of lust and frustration, but then his fingers caught on the raised, often-replenished scar of Khalila's mating bite on Dario's throat, and the jolt of instinctive territorial alarm woke him up.

Another alpha? Where? I'll kill them!

He breathed as deeply as he could. He felt as if he were incredibly drunk. His mouth and chin was hot and slippery with heat oil.

Dario was whining frantically. His hands were scrabbling, trying to press underneath himself to reach his belt, but Santi was pinning him down far too firmly for that.

Yes. Clothes. That was the problem. Santi sat back on his haunches and reached for Dario's belt.

Dario tried to help, but Santi growled until he stopped. 

It took too long, it took far too long for Santi's clumsy fingers to defeat Dario's belt clasp, but he managed it eventually. His own trouser fastenings defeated him too for what felt like an eternity.

Then his rock-hard cock sprang free and he lurched forwards. He buried himself inside Dario in one firm shove and let his body set the pace of his fierce thrusts.


	3. Jess/Dario - short

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dario unexpectedly comes into heat. Jess isn't exactly devastated, but he would rather have liked some warning. 
> 
> A few feline characteristics in this one. 
> 
> Omega Jess and omega Dario. Alpha Khalila mentioned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Thursday! That means I can update again ... despite cheating and already updating on Monday ... 
> 
> VALIDATE ME WITH HITS AND KUDOS.

Jess was starting to get concerned. Dario always took forever in the shower, but for the water to still be running over an hour later was unusual even for him. More worrying was the steam and the bittersweet chocolatey scent seeping out from under the door.

Dario was at least three days out from his heat. It was on the calendar. Khalila had timed her trip.

Except that didn’t smell like pre-heat. Jess was an omega so his nose wasn’t as sensitive to the nuances as an alpha would have been, but some things were just too obvious to miss.

He knocked. “Dario, are you trying to drown yourself in there?”

No response.

Mind made up, he picked the lock.

The combination of steam and scent blinded him for a good few seconds. That shower had to be nearly scalding.

He fumbled towards the shower, and turned off the faucet.

Dario whined. He was slumped on the floor with his eyes screwed shut. His skin was a deep pink. Jess could feel the heat radiating off him without even touching him.

“Shit.” He shook Dario’s shoulder and nearly flinched at the temperature of Dario's reddened skin. Dario might have actually burnt himself, just a little. “Dario? Can you hear me?”

Dario whined again. He blinked and opened his eyes, and looked at Jess with glazed disinterest.

How the _fuck_ had Dario flipped his body clock about six days forwards in time in the time it took to have a shower? This was absolute peak heat. Jess could barely breathe for the pheromones Dario was pumping out. Chocolatey arousal, yes, but the bitter undertones were hugely exaggerated from his distress.

“Come on, Dario. Out you get. Let’s get you sorted.” He tugged Dario’s hand, to no effect at all. Dario just waited until he’d stopped, then curled into a tight ball and started whining again.

God damn it. Straight to the nuclear option, then. He’d never been around Dario in heat before, and this was going to be a completely different vibe to their casual sexual arrangement.

Jess quickly stripped off and climbed into the shower. Curled himself round Dario from behind. Dario chirped and listlessly shifted his hips.

“Come on,” Jess muttered, stroking Dario’s hot chest. “Nice physical contact. Makes you feel better, right?”

Dario chirped again and stretched out his neck.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Jess nibbled gently on Dario’s neck. Khalila got weird about anyone else biting Dario during his heat.

Dario started shifting around. Jess let go of him to allow him to move, but then realised too late that Dario was trying to present. He was too weak and dizzy from the excessive temperatures he’d subjected himself to to manage it, and ended up sprawled on the floor again. Crying this time, rather than whining.

“You bloody dehydrated idiot.” Jess pushed three fingers straight into Dario, who let out a wobbly gasp and started to try to get up onto his hands and knees again. “No, stay down.” He shoved Dario’s head back down again, by the neck which he knew Dario wouldn’t protest, then grabbed his thighs and hoisted them up. “There. That’s kind of presenting. Happy now?” He pushed his fourth finger inside Dario, and Dario moaned and flailed around happily.

It didn’t take long to get his fist inside Dario, and to set about carefully pressing an orgasm out of him that way, while Dario wriggled on the floor and tried to thrust back onto Jess’ hand and let out a strange incoherent jumble of chirps and purrs and mews.

Once he came, he went limp and silent, to the point that Jess had to watch his chest to make sure he was breathing. But his scent gradually receded until Jess didn’t feel like he was being force-fed 100% dark chocolate any more, and his skin cooled.

Just a little, not as much as it should because of how badly Dario had fucked up the shower, but a little.

When he blinked at Jess this time, there was recognition in his gaze.

“What?” He peered around and tried to sit up. Jess put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Take it easy. You’re in heat. You tried to boil yourself alive in the shower.”

“What?” Dario said again, in tones of exhausted bewilderment. “I’m not in heat.”

“You absolutely are, you bastard. I just got you off the peak, you’re welcome.”

“Oh.” Dario rubbed his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Try not to be even more of an idiot than normal. It’s hardly your fault.”

Dario sighed. “My head hurts.”

“I’m really not surprised.” Jess crouched and held out his hands. “Come on. Let’s get you settled, get some water into you.”

“I’m fine,” Dario mumbled, and tried to use the slippery tiled wall to get himself to his feet. That went about as well as you might expect. Jess grabbed him around the waist and bodily hauled him out of the shower. “Sorry,” Dario mumbled again.

“Oh, shut up.”

Dario caterwauled with excitement as Jess steered him towards his nesting room, and started trying to get his feet underneath him more reliably.

That faded when the door opened on an empty room.

The room wasn’t actually empty; it was stuffed to capacity with cushions and blankets and quilts and one luxurious bolt of red silk, unwound and laid everywhere prettily.

But it didn’t contain Khalila. No alpha. No mate.

Dario curled against Jess and started crying again, his scent turning bitter and awful.

Jess could understand the confusion in Dario’s current state; Khalila had obviously spent some time in here scenting it before she left and it still smelt strongly of her.

With difficulty he dragged Dario over the threshold and left him hugging a particularly pungent bolster pillow with all four limbs and yowling with misery. His scent was rank with bitter desolation: _L_ _one omega. Abandoned omega_.

Jess prayed to any god that was listening that the penthouse suite was very well scent controlled, because this was a genuinely dangerous type of heat scent that pulled in alphas like the proverbial flies to a honeypot.

“Where do you keep your toys?” he asked later, after forcing a pint of water down Dario’s throat for a stressful ten minutes.

Dario hissed moodily at him and buried his face in the pillow.

“Look, I know I’m not Khalila! I’m trying to help! I can tell you’re going to need something soon!” For his chocolatey scent was growing again. An omega cock couldn’t hit an omega prostate reliably enough to trigger the orgasms that alleviated heat, and although a fist _could_ , Jess really didn’t want to end up pulling his forearm muscles when a knotted toy would do just as well.

“Fuck off.” Dario didn’t even manage to sound pissed off. Just miserable. He was purring quietly to try and self-soothe. It was an awful, ragged sound that grated on Jess’ ears.

Jess sighed and started to get up to look around the room for himself. Dario whined and grabbed his ankle. Jess sighed and sat back down. 

“Fuck off, Jess. Don’t go, Jess,” Jess said mockingly as he rubbed Dario's back, firm strokes over the small of his back where he knew it would ache. Dario grunted and arched his back into the touch. “You’re not helping yourself.”

Dario sniffed and wiped his eyes. He drew in a shaky breath. “I know.” His eyes unfocused for a moment, but he managed a few more words. “But nothing is right.”

Ouch, that made Jess feel bad. It was shitty enough to go through a heat without an alpha, he’d had that often enough himself, but to do it without your bonded mate, with absolutely no time to mentally prepare for anything? Yeah, ok.

So he lay down behind Dario and cuddled him tightly. Dario spent the first few minutes alternating mewing with contentment and swearing at Jess, depending on his level of alertness, but soon his purr smoothed out into a pleasant sound and he started softly rutting against the pillow. Everything smelt like chocolate.

With the lack of alpha thus temporarily soothed, Dario could just about be persuaded to let Jess go toy hunting.

Jess found the display half-hidden behind a carelessly placed pillow, and gave the array a cursory appreciative glance before grabbing the biggest dildo he could find and hurrying back to Dario, who was back to whining in a quiet, hopeless way that made Jess’ stomach twist.

He squeezed the back of Dario’s neck in a way that he hoped was soothing. “Look what I found.” He rubbed the dildo against Dario’s cheek. Dario followed it almost absentmindedly, then he inhaled and Jess saw his pupils blow.

Slightly bemused, he let Dario pounce on it. At least the flared base would stop him literally swallowing it.

“Oh, right, does that smell like her too?” He’d gone kind of nose-blind to Khalila’s scent, to be honest, other than his erection that he was steadfastly ignoring.

He let Dario happily work away on the dildo for a while, rubbing the back of Dario's neck every now and again and feeling his skin grow hot and damp as his heat rose.

Eventually Dario let the dildo fall from his mouth. He whined and nosed it sadly.

Jess plucked the de-scented dildo away from him. “All right then. You’ll love it again in just a second, I promise.” He pressed it between Dario’s cheeks, where there was certainly no need for lubricant.

Dario yelped joyfully and flailed around trying to get on his hands and knees. Jess gripped his neck hard enough to hurt, hard enough to half paralyse, and Dario subsided with a confused mewl.

“Good boy,” Jess said absentmindedly. He pried the bolster pillow away from Dario, which got a growl and a snap of teeth that he completely ignored as the empty threat they both knew it was, and rolled Dario onto his stomach. Wedged a couple of pillows under his hips. “There. You like a lazy heat, don’t you?” He slid the dildo home and Dario moaned with delight and pushed back against it. “I do all the work, you lie here and start enjoying yourself. How’s that?”

Dario purred and purred.


	4. Khalila/Santi & Wolfe - long

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH LOOK IT'S THURSDAY AGAIN.
> 
> Have a reasonably long exceedingly unfinished bit of alpha Khalila and omega Santi sailing in to help. Omega Wolfe is also there. He wishes he wasn't.

Khalila cried until she was sick. Then she threw her chair across the room. Then she got herself off again, just for something to do. It didn’t help. She still felt like ripping her own skin off with guilt that she wasn’t with Dario. 

Then Nic stepped into the room and all she could do for a little while was snarl as her competing desires ripped at her insides. 

Not mine. But omega! But not mine. 

Omega. 

He smelt nice. Like leather and smoke. More than that; he smelt sated. 

She could smell Wolfe on him too; ink and the indescribable smell of a sandstorm. 

Two calm, happy omega scents, from people she trusted and cared about. 

It was indescribably soothing. She took her first deep breath in ages and let it whoosh out of her. 

“Hello, dear.” Only then did she realise that she was clinging to Santi, burying her face in his chest as he stroked her back. 

“Sorry!” She let go and tried to back away, but he held her hand to stop her. 

“You’ve nothing to apologise for. Nothing at all.” He reached out towards her face. She bared her teeth, though she didn’t know why. Maybe simply because she was disgusting - she could feel the film of perspiration coating her face from her miserably high temperature. 

“Why are you here?” she said, once she managed to lower her upper lip again. 

Nic tilted his head. She watched his neck, even though it wasn’t that kind of a tilt. “Do you remember threatening to bite your staff, Khalila?”

Her blood went cold. Had she done that? Maybe. She had a vague memory of not wanting people to be in the room with her. 

“It’s not safe,” she whispered, on the wisp of that memory. 

“It’s all right.” Nic stroked her hand. 

She snarled again. “No!”

No, Nic had misunderstood. She was perfectly safe. She was in no danger. But she was an alpha with effective training in armed and unarmed combat and she was in full-blown rut and she _wasn’t where she should be_. 

Because, her mind reminded her, yet again, falling easily into the groove she’d ground in her own thoughts, she was in full-blown rut and that meant Dario was in full-blown heat at home and she wasn’t there and he would be crying for her, he would be desperate for her - 

That noise? Was she making that noise? That horrible keening yowl? She tried to stop it. Her legs wobbled and she slumped to her knees. 

Part of her mind rejoiced. Kneeling was a good position. Where was the presenting omega, ready and waiting? Where? 

Words. Someone was speaking. Unimportant. 

But omega! Omega smell, omega body. 

She curled in close to it and bared her teeth, trying to find their neck, but she couldn’t reach it! Everywhere was shirt! She growled at it. It didn’t disappear. She tried to change position, but she wasn’t even sure what her position was. 

Her head was spinning. Was the floor moving, or was she going to faint? But, here, yes. Omega scent gland. So tasty. And something that wasn’t her own useless hand tight around her shaft, at last, at last.

* * *

Wolfe’s Codex chimed. He sighed and pulled it out of his jacket pocket.

 _Fine, you were right,_ said Nic’s scrawl, even messier than usual. 

“We can’t help her like that,” Wolfe had argued when Santi had first been told of the trouble with Khalila. “I can’t, and you’ll just slide straight into sympathy-heat!”

“I’m not that sensitive,” Santi had protested, but he’d wilted under Wolfe’s glare. “All right. If I start hazing over, I’ll let you know, all right?” 

And now here they were, as Wolfe had known they would be. Outside of work Nic couldn't resist an attractive alpha in rut. 

Wolfe sighed again and stood up. He exchanged a small, frustrated look with Captain Gurung, Khalila’s head of personal security, and opened the door to the office. 

Impervious as he was to the effects of alpha pheromones, the sheer intensity of them nearly made him recoil. He sneezed at the hot cinnamon scent. The room smelt unpleasantly of sex and desperation. 

Nic was lying on his back on the sofa at the far side of the room, naked from the waist down and grinning at Wolfe, with yes, a hint of heat lassitude in his expression. Wolfe could faintly detect Nic’s pleasant smoky scent underneath the alpha reek. 

He didn’t dare go any further into the room, though, after closing the door behind him. Khalila was sat bolt upright, staring at him with wild clouded eyes and chittering with aggressive frustration. She appeared to still be fully dressed, but at the angle she was sitting, there was no way she wasn’t buried inside Nic. 

“That’s only Chris,” Nic said in a soothing voice, stroking the protective hand that she had put squarely in the centre of his chest. “Only Wolfe. He’s no danger." 

Khalila growled, deep and quiet. She looked far too agitated for an alpha in mid-rut with a willing omega. Wolfe’s heart ached for her, as much as he had a lecture on her and Dario’s utter stupidity stored and waiting. 

"It’s only me, dear,” he said. “Come and see, if you need to.”

She looked from Nic to him several times and whined, and bucked her hips. Nic made a sound in reaction, which seemed to relax her a little. Then she shifted position. There was a squelch as she did so, which made Wolfe wince fastidiously. 

Even had he been … sexually compatible … with one of the children, he couldn’t have filled Nic’s role. 

No, Nic’s lack of explicit paternal instinct was very … on display, currently, as Khalila leaned over him to carefully scent-mark him.

As if it were possible to make anything in this room smell more strongly of her. Nic might be sleeping in the barracks for a night or two, after this. 

She got to her feet, looking a touch unsteady, and walked towards Wolfe. She and Nic had obviously begun very abruptly; she was still wearing her headscarf, though it was exceedingly askew to almost the point of uselessness, and she was even still wearing her soft indoor slippers. Her creased dress was a deep purple which thankfully meant that he could almost completely ignore the large darker patch at the level of her pelvis. 

As she came closer, he could see the shine of perspiration over every inch of her exposed skin. Her eyes were glazed, but something was still ticking behind her blank stare, because to Wolfe’s utmost relief she stopped an arm’s length away from him. It took an effort; she was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. 

“Wolfe?” she asked, in a voice strangled with throaty alpha tones. 

“Hello, Khalila,” he said in the calmest voice he could manage. Slowly, as if she might strike - and it was important to remember that that wasn’t necessarily hypothetical - he held out one hand. Her eyes tracked it immediately, but they flew back towards him and she gave a soft questioning chirp. 

At his encouraging nod, she took his hand in both of hers and raised it to her hot, damp cheek. She nuzzled his wrist gland surprisingly chastely. 

“You smell the same.” Her tense shoulders lowered, just a little.

Wolfe relaxed too, relieved at the success of that first stage of his and Nic’s plan, where they had messily jerked each other off a few minutes before Nic had entered the room. 

He soon tensed up again though as Khalila gripped him more tightly and brought his wrist to her mouth and parted her lips, rut driving her to stake her claim. 

Hoping he wouldn’t get attacked for startling her, he quickly brought his other hand to her ear and clicked his fingers sharply. 

“No, Khalila!" 

She released him and stepped away, and started rocking harder on the balls of her feet, staring at him with sad confusion. 

"Sorry,” she mumbled. “Sorry, Wolfe.” She blinked, hard, and the glaze lifted from her eyes for a split second. “I … Scholar, I, I’m sorry, I-" 

His heart broke for her again, watching her frantically trying to reconstruct her sense of self. He knew what that was like from the other side. He’d had heats in Rome, where the stimuli to reconnect his intellect had been far, far worse. 

He stepped forwards and took her gently by the shoulders. "Ssh. No. Don’t do that. Don’t fight it anymore." 

She looked at him, pheromones flaring bitter and anxious, panting, eyes jittering with the effort of trying to think at anything like her normal rate. 

"But, Nic! Forgive me, I -" 

"Ssh.” He kissed her glistening forehead and stepped closer still, close enough to put a guiding arm around her trembling shoulders. “Yes, Nic. Why don’t we go back to Nic, now? I’m sure he misses you.”

He made sure not to look directly over at Nic as he said that, because if he got a good look at Nic, lying there all rumpled and debauched with his smoky scent growing stronger by the minute, then he might start getting aroused himself and he needed that not to happen while he was embracing Khalila. 

Nic let out a sharp sound, specifically meant to entice an alpha, and Wolfe breathed a sigh of relief that Nic had already seen that problem too. 

Khalila turned in response to Nic, and made that anxious chittering sound again.

"Go on.“ Wolfe gave her a gentle push. Spoke some more, to quiet any remnant straining to listen through the rut; "You must be nearly through the peak, now. Resisting will just make you feel worse for longer.”

She walked back towards Nic. 

“C’m here.” He sat up and tugged her into a hungry kiss. Wolfe tried not to look.

Hearing his name dragged his attention back. “Don’t let Chris spoil the fun.” Nic physically lifted Khalila off her feet and deposited her between his splayed legs. 

She looked so tiny astride Nic’s bulk, Wolfe mused. You’d never think to look at her that she was as lethal as she was. 

Yes, fine, Wolfe was watching now, just a bit. It was entirely Nic’s fault – he knew how much Wolfe liked watching him exercise his strength. Bastard. 

Khalila let out a soft, uncertain little purr and plucked fruitlessly at Nic’s shirt as she re-positioned herself. 

Oh, that cooled Wolfe’s arousal down again. Without any pheromonal effect to blur his own senses, seeing her like this was just upsetting. Distressed, feverish, insensible … 

A gold band. The first person ever to achieve a perfect entrance score. The Archivist, for heaven’s sake. All that dazzling, blinding intellect, and rut stripped it away to the point where she couldn’t open the buttons on a shirt. 

(He had several thoughts, then, about Rome and his heat and how it must have been for Nic after he’d returned and he didn’t want to consider any of them, fuck-you-very-much.) 

Nic groaned luxuriously as she sank back inside him. “That’s more like it.” He used his legs to pull her in even deeper. Her purr grew in strength as she started to thrust, and Nic joined in with a comforting rumble of his own. “C’mon, beautiful. Get it out of your system.” 

Wolfe wrinkled his nose. “Don’t act like this is a chore, Nic.”

“Oh, it is definitely not a chore.” Nic grinned. “It’s so _good_.” His voice thickened and deepened on ‘good’ and he tightened his legs around Khalila again. 

Wolfe snorted. “Oh, so you _are_ actually reacting. I was beginning to wonder if you’d brought me in just to enjoy my discomfort.” 

“I enjoy enjoying your discomfort,” Nic mumbled. Sweat was starting to shine on his face too, as Khalila picked up her pace. “I could tell you all sorts of things about her cock that you don’t want to know.” 

"Shut up."

* * *

“Keep going,” Nic blurted, some time later when Khalila paused her thrusts. “Oh God, keep going.” 

Wolfe smiled. Yes, that was Nic in heat all right. Needy, mouthy fucker. 

Now there was a train of thought he shouldn’t go down if he wanted to keep his own head and make sure they both stayed safe. 

Which, on that note, now that Nic was starting to properly haze over; 

“Is your condom still in?” 

Nic fumbled to check. “Mm. Yes. Still there.” He gave Wolfe a hazy smile. 

“Good.” Wolfe picked the furthest corner of the room to pace up and down while the sofa squeaked rhythmically and Khalila’s satisfied purring rose and fell in time with Nic’s growing incoherence. 

“Chris …” That was a whine. Wolfe sighed and looked in his partner’s direction. “What?” 

Nic’s hair was a sweaty mess where the back of his head was constantly being rubbed against the arm of the sofa. 

“Chris, if she comes off peak and I haven’t come yet, I swear I will die.” 

Wolfe rolled his eyes. “You have hands.” 

“Nn. No. No hands. She … oh, fuck. See?” 

Arousal curled hot and tight into Wolfe’s groin as he watched Nic’s hands wander down his belly – But then Khalila took hold of Nic’s wrists and moved them back to his sides with a throaty, growling, 

“Stay.” 

“Oh, fucking _come on_.” Nic’s voice was ragged but he kept his wrists still. 

Khalila stopped thrusting for a moment and patted him on the stomach. “Good omega,” she said. Her tone might have sounded soothing to Wolfe had it still not had that dark alpha burr that made his hackles rise. 

‘Alpha voice’ did not make Nic’s hackles rise. It made Nic bare his neck and whine properly, high and needy, words deserting him.

Wolfe spun to stare at the wall in front of him and tried to pretend his cock wasn’t readily responding to the delicious sound of his lover begging. 

“She’s coming out of peak, if she’s noticing your reactions,” he noted with the steadiest voice he could manage. 

“Jesus fucking Christ almighty, I hate you all. This was … Chris, this was not the fucking plan. Fu-uck.” 

“Ssh.” That could have come from Wolfe’s lips except it hadn’t – “Just let me finish,” Khalila said, as clear as a bell, “and then I’ll take care of you, Nic.” 

Wolfe turned at that, he couldn’t help himself, and his gut twisted as he saw Khalila lovingly nuzzle NIc’s stomach, before sitting back up and shutting her eyes and flinging her entire body into fucking Nic, there was no other word for it, _fucking_ Nic so hard that he nearly fell off the sofa.

It didn’t take much of that before Khalila made a high, incoherent sound and slumped forwards onto Nic, panting hard. Nic, who was breathing raggedly himself, purred reassuringly at her and petted her head where it rested on his chest.

Wolfe eyed Nic carefully. He seemed to be trying to pull himself out of the sympathy heat, which would be tricky in any circumstance let alone having an alpha in rut curled on top of him exuding satisfied, warm pheromones. 

“You all right, my love?” he asked quietly, taking a few steps closer. 

“Mm. Yes. Give me a second.” Nic shifted his position and let out a shuddering sigh. He rubbed his face and groaned softly. 

The movement roused Khalila. She blinked up at Nic and said, “Oh, yes. I promised,” in a nearly steady voice. Then she shifted on Nic’s stomach, nuzzling her face into him like he was a pillow until she found his cock, lying almost flat against his stomach, and covered it with her hand and mouth. 

Nic choked on his own inhale and his entire body went rigid. 

“Khalila!” he yelped.

Wolfe heard the panic in his partner’s voice and knew what he meant. “Only if you want to,” he told Khalila firmly. “There is no obligation at all." 

_I’ll do it_ , said a hungry voice in the back of his mind. 

Khalila rolled her head backwards, raising her lips just enough to speak. "Thank you, Scholar Wolfe.” Then she turned her face up towards Nic and when she next spoke her voice was warm and throaty and alpha again. “But you’ve been so good to me, Nic. And you’re so tasty.” She giggled as she said that, and licked Nic’s wet tip.

She’s still a little rut-fogged, then, Wolfe thought, unsure if that made anything better or worse.

Nic whimpered as she spoke to him in that voice, and as she went back to gently, sleepily, shallowly sucking on him, both his hands made a convulsive movement downwards. Heading, Wolfe knew, to her head, to push her down harder. 

“Hands flat!” Wolfe barked. 

Nic growled wordlessly as his fingers gripped the side of the sofa hard enough to turn the knuckles white. “Fuck,” he gasped. 

That hungry voice in Wolfe’s mind refused to be quieted anymore. “Do you need me to hold you down, soldier?” he asked hoarsely. 

“Oh, fuck. Please, Chris. Please." 

Wolfe approached the sofa cautiously - Khalila was still in rut after all, though no longer mindless with it. She met his eyes calmly, though. A very quick look at her technique showed to his surprise that although she still only had the head of Nic’s cock in her mouth, her mouth was alternating between hard suction and a very busy tongue. It wasn’t as sleepy or as careless as it had looked from further away.

He nodded awkwardly to her, then leaned over to grip Nic’s too-warm wrists and pin them down with his full body weight. Nic strained upwards against his hold, then moaned out loud when he couldn’t immediately break free. 

"That’s it,” Wolfe whispered in his ear, as Nic’s eyes rolled up and he relaxed into the sofa at last. “We’ve got you.” He paused and ran that slightly uncomfortable though through his mind again. Heaving a sigh, he grumbled, “This was a very convoluted way to get me to finally agree to a threesome after nearly twenty-five years." 

Khalila spluttered with a giggle next to him, then did something with her mouth that made Nic moan again and writhe against both their weights. He tipped his head backwards, eyes rolling under their closed lids.

"Please,” he blurted. “Nearly. Please." 

_Please what?_ Wolfe nearly asked. But then he saw the thick, strained, offered line of Nic’s throat and his erection throbbed in its tight confines, his body understanding before his mind. 

Khalila’s pheromones suddenly surged again, hot enough to tickle his nose. 

Wolfe looked at her. Her eyes were focused on Nic’s neck like a cat focused on its prey. 

Wolfe hadn’t felt suicidal in quite a long time, but apparently there was still a stray impulse floating around; it was the only logical reason for why he glared furiously at the rut-fogged, instinct-primed alpha less than a foot away from him and snarled, " _Mine_." 

Her eyes blazed and her lips drew back over her teeth, but she shuddered all over and mastered herself before Wolfe even had time to conclude how he might defend himself without hurting her. She mewed, very gently, and kissed the wet head of Nic’s cock in an apparent peace offering before slipping it into her mouth again. 

With his heart pounding in his temples, Wolfe tore his gaze away from her and dived for Nic’s throat. "Mine,” he snarled again as his lips parted over their mating scar. Even though there had never been any alpha saliva to make it turn keloid, after more than twenty years of renewal the scar tissue stood out clear and proud. 

His teeth sank in and he held them there, tight and unyielding as Nic bucked and groaned and babbled his name. Khalila made a small muffled sound and then did something that made Nic nearly buck them both off with the strength of his reaction. Then he was shuddering and grunting as he came, and Wolfe reluctantly removed his teeth and licked their imprint. 

Nic pushed his face towards him with a thin whine and their mouths meshed in a slow, hot breathless kiss. Wolfe finally released Nic’s wrists, and immediately Nic clutched at him. Wolfe knelt for a better angle, and let Nic pull him in closer.

Eventually it became impossible to ignore Khalila. It wasn’t as though she was being loud or obnoxious, it was just that her mere presence rubbed at Wolfe’s senses like an irritant. As an alpha, as a person, she should not be here. 

Reluctantly, he stopped kissing along NIc’s stubbly jaw and looked over at her. “Are you quite done needing to be rescued?” he said roughly. 

She smiled. One tooth peeked over her lip. “Is that what you call it?” She was sat up, but leaning comfortably against the back of the sofa with half-shut eyes. Her headscarf had slipped completely free at last, and she was fiddling with her dishevelled hair. If she had been Wolfe’s type in any way at all, he was sure it would have been an appealing picture.

“No,” Wolfe continued doggedly, “I call it you being an idiot." 

"Chris, be nice,” Nic mumbled, a useless twenty year-old habit that for some reason persisted despite an utter lack of positive results. 

Wolfe didn’t suffer fools. 

“We didn’t just get a message saying that you were being a bit of a rut-head, Khalila, we got a message saying you were so beside yourself that you were a danger to yourself and everyone around you!”

A number of expressions passed across Khalila’s face, flickering fire-fast from anger to shame. "I didn’t think it would be that bad.” There was no excuse or complaint in her voice, she merely placed the fact in front of him. 

Wolfe growled in frustration at the thoughtlessness. The lack of preparation! The risk! “Of all people, I wouldn’t expect this foolishness from you.”

He didn’t realise that his hackles were up until Khalila flashed him a mindless stare of reciprocated aggression and Nic very unsubtly sat up and leaned into her field of vision. 

“Easy,” Nic murmured. He stretched his neck submissively and nuzzled her face. She closed her eyes and quivered all over, breathing in Nic’s smoky scent with an open mouth. When she opened her eyes again a few moments later, they were clearer. 

“I apologise for bringing you two here. I never intended for anyone else to be inconvenienced.” Her brisk, steady voice looked out of place with her rumpled state and still very present rut scent. The facade of normality looked like a struggle. 

Wolfe winced at the implication that Khalila had meant for herself to be inconvenienced. Except that she also just admitted she hadn’t expected it to be that bad. 

“I think a lot happened that you didn't intend,” he said, in the least confrontational tone he could manage. 

She nodded. That paper-thin air of composure faded as she winced and rubbed her forehead. “I-I believe I have many apologies to give to my staff." 

"Yes,” Wolfe said, at the same time that Nic said, 

“Are you all right, dear?" 

"Just a headache." 

"Fuck knows when you last ate or drank.” Despite his harsh words, Wolfe got to his feet. His back ached. He headed for the faucet in the corner of the room. 

“Normally my ruts are nothing like this,” he heard Khalila say in a miserable voice. “Normally, I stay in control, I-”

 _Oh shit_ , Wolfe thought. He could as good as hear Khalila’s mind whirr. The room flooded with agitated alpha scent, and Wolfe found himself pressing his back against the wall before he quite knew what he was doing. 

Luckily, Nic was more than sensible enough to avoid restraining Khalila as she sprang to her feet and wobbled, hard. 

“You shouldn't even be here. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You should go to Dario. Go and help Dario.” Her voice cracked as she said Dario’s name. “He’ll be so-”

“Dario is fine,” Nic said, in a much firmer voice than he had yet employed. 

It worked, Khalila twitched and stared at Nic. Even from the other side of the room, Wolfe could see how much her legs were shaking. 

“Dario is fine,” Nic repeated. He patted the sofa cushion next to him. “Sit down before you fall. Dario wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself, would he?”

She shook her head and sat down like her legs had just given out. Wolfe crossed the room and handed her the glass of water. She held it in both hands and glared up at him.

“How do you know that? Are you not just lying to me?”

He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t resist reaching out to smooth some hair away from where it was stuck to her slick forehead. She bared one side of her mouth in a token snarl. 

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

All her teeth bared then, in a parody of a smile, and her rut scent grew strong enough to burn the inside of his nose and make his heart race. “Parcel out the information you believe we need, then.”

That hurt, as he was certain it was supposed to. How many years had it been since he had been forced to hide information like that from his postulant? 

“You are the Archivist,” he snarled. “You dole out information to me, these days.”

'Right.' That was Nic's voice of command. Only long experience relying on that for his safety in war-zones made Wolfe take his gaze away from Khalila's teeth to look at his partner. ''Khalila. There is no threat here. There is nothing to fight and there is nothing to protect. You know this. I need you to react appropriately.' 

Wolfe had seen Nic do this once before, in the Prague war zone, when an alpha soldier had reacted badly to the scent of frightened Scholars. It was still fascinating. Nic’s voice was firm and steady and it demanded attention, but he wasn't posturing or glaring. 

If anything, his body language was stereotypical omegan placating, head a little tilted, hands by his sides. Even his scent seemed thicker than before. 

To Wolfe’s surprise Khalila almost immediately backed down, curling into a miserable ball on the sofa. 

_I doubt that would have worked_ , Wolfe mused, _if they hadn't fucked less than fifteen minutes ago_. 

'I know there's nothing,' Khalila said softly, into her folded arms. 'Nothing that's here. Nothing I can do.' Her voice wobbled. Her pheromones turned bitter and unpleasantly spicy. Nic reached for her and she pushed his hand aside. 'Stop trying to seduce me.'

Nic gave a short, sharp chuckle. 'That wasn't what I meant, but I will get dressed again if you'd be more comfortable.' He stood briefly to pull up his underwear and trousers from their tight tangle around his ankles. His hackles were raised, just a fraction, just enough that Wolfe wanted to smooth them down again. 

The little exchange had given Wolfe a moment to pull himself together. 

'I'm not surprised this rut feels different from your usual ruts,' he said.' Do you know why you're so badly affected this time?' 

Khalila shook her head. 

Wolfe tried not to roll his eyes and tried not to wonder about the state of modern sex education. 

'Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but this is your first rut after your mating?' 

Khalila nodded. Understanding started to dawn in her eyes. 

'And your cycles are fully synced?'

Another nod. Right, then. 

'You picked the worst possible time to have an unmedicated cycle. Your mind is reminding you how much you miss him and how much he must be missing you, while your body is convinced that his absence so soon after your mating means that he has been stolen from you. So everything is feeding on itself in this horrible loop.'

She flinched at that, but nodded again. 

'You said he's fine,' she said, half aggressive and half pleading.

Wolfe frowned. 

'Have you not given her the letter, Nic?' 

Nic scoffed. 'At which point was I supposed to do that?' He gestured broadly at his dishevelled state.

Wolfe raised his eyebrows. Khalila made an embarrassed sound. 

'I'm sorry, Nic.'

'What for?' Nic sat back down next to her and reached into his jacket pocket. As the folded sheet of paper appeared, Khalila's gaze flickered to it and her nostrils flared. Wolfe couldn't smell anything, but Dario had touched the paper, after all, and all of Khalila's senses would be heightened right now. 

He expected Khalila to dive for the letter, but she merely took it from Nic and then returned her attention to him. 

"I apologise." 

Wolfe knew that tone. That was Khalila's putting-duty-first tone, albeit far shakier than usual. 

She put one hand lightly on Nic's knee. "Did we ... I ... you smell like heat. Are you in heat? Was that me? Are you all right?" The words spilled out of her in a rush. 

Wolfe rolled his eyes. Khalila was just redirecting her protective instincts now. 

"Yes to all of the above," Nic said, covering Khalila's hand with his own. "Very mild sympathy heat. I'm absolutely fine. For a bereft alpha in a very unpleasant rut, you were astonishingly gentle."

Wolfe chewed the inside of his cheek hard to stop himself grinning at the hopefully imperceptible note of disappointment in Nic's voice. He had wondered about the lack of bite marks on Nic.

"Right. Good." She stayed quiet for a moment after that, wearing the wide-eyed, poleaxed expression of someone trying to rifle through unreliable memories. She flinched and turned to Wolfe. "I snarled at you!"

"Once or twice." Wolfe shrugged. "I returned the favour."

"I remember," she said distractedly. She toyed with the letter but still didn't unfold it. "Because, Nic. Yes." Her gaze swerved back to Nic. "Did I bite you? Before Wolfe entered the room?"

"No. Not at all."

(If Wolfe looked at Nic right now, he was going to laugh out loud, and also possibly bite him in a consolatory sort of way.)

But the look on Khalila's face was one of relief. Maybe that was the agreement that she had with Dario for emergencies? No bites?

She sighed and leant against Nic's broad shoulder as she unfolded the single sheet of paper. Wolfe had watched it being written, in another situation that he'd never wanted to witness from his damned children, and knew what it said. 

He initially thought that he'd be able to track his way down the letter by watching Khalila start to smile, or roll her eyes. Instead, she frowned from the beginning, and after a very short amount of time started to move her lips.

Wolfe shot a look of understanding at Nic to catch his attention. 

"Like me," he muttered. He could barely read when he was deep in heat, or very drunk. His normal reading speed was very fast and in chunks, rather than line by line, and when his faculties were compromised, the habits couldn't adjust to slower processing. 

"Khalila?"

She blinked up at him. She looked exhausted all of a sudden. 

"Don't make your headache worse." A good excuse, that. It was probably even true. 

Nic slid an arm around her shoulders and held out his hand for the letter. "May I, dear?"

She sighed and sank into the cuddle, nuzzling Nic's neck with a soft little inhale. "All right."

"I'll paraphrase," Nic said. 

"Absolutely not." Wolfe grinned at Nic. "You'll read it out."

Nic raised his eyebrows, but did as he was told. Wolfe pictured the letter in his mind as Nic began.

 _Hi flower_ , it began in Dario's handwriting. It started off messy by his standards and got steadily worse. 

_nic says he's going to offer to partner you. you should do that. im jealous of both of you._

Here Nic's voice faltered and he looked at Khalila with surprise. She rolled her eyes and smiled fondly. 

"Yes. Dario will be incredibly jealous of me." She wriggled flirtatiously against Nic. 

Nic licked his lips. "I'm too much in heat to have that conversation," he said at last. 

Wolfe rolled his eyes too, much more so than Khalila. "Just fuck your way through all the children one by one, my love," he said with a sigh. 

Nic gave him an unreadable look before refocusing on the letter. His face was flushed. 

_thomas and jess are looking after me, don't worry about me._

Then, sharp and spiky;

_jess is a bastard and i hate him_

_Khalila, all I did was point out we couldn't both fuck him at once!!_

_you could if you tried hard enough you coward_

_Don't worry, Khalila, I'll stop them killing each other._

Thomas dotted the 'i's in those words with hearts. Wolfe resolved to check all Thomas' papers to make sure that ridiculous habit wasn't sneaking through into his work. 

"Thank you, Thomas," Khalila mumbled with a soft giggle. 

_i have the pen back now flower its me your husband yours yours yours i love you._

Nic was laughing as he read, but more importantly so was Khalila. 

Somehow he was managing a similar flurried tone as Dario had to Wolfe's ears. Dario had been neck-deep in heat at the time of writing, and had carefully spoken aloud as he wrote, fighting the languid drag of heat with all he had. 

_i love you and i miss you_

there was a handwriting change here, as he wrote in painstaking capitals,

 _AND I'M FINE_ ,

_and you should say yes to nic please say yes you need it too i know you do I know you want_

Nic eyed the remaining few lines and his flush intensified. "I'm not reading that out loud. You get the gist."

She nodded and yawned widely. "He's being looked after." She smiled up at Nic and kissed his shoulder. "And so am I."

"Exactly." Nic squeezed her shoulders. "Are you going to peak again soon, do you think?"

Wolfe tried to keep his expression neutral as his chest gave a pang. He wasn't sure he could watch that again. 

Thankfully, Khalila shook her head and yawned. "Usually Dario gets in two peaks to every one of mine." She yawned again. "I should eat."

Nic stroked her hair. "Why don't you have a nap? We'll get refreshments sorted." 

"Oh, right. Thank you."

Within five minutes of saying those words, she was deeply asleep. 


	5. Khalila/Dario - very short

"Well," Khalila said approvingly as she opened the door into the blacked-out heat room.

Dario sank his teeth into his lip to stop himself calling out to her. Her light vanilla and cinnamon scent swirled into the room and made his head spin.

Yes! He'd succeeded in sending her into rut to join him.

He hadn't been sure. She'd been away for all of his pre-heat ramp-up. He was sure they wouldn't sync, not without a little assistance, so he'd ... well, saying that he'd laced the suite with his pheromones sounded a little trashy crime novel, but it was true.

He'd even slipped a pair of his underwear into her work bag.

She smelt so fucking good. His body shuddered with a number of impulses: call her to him, go to her. Present himself for her. Hers. His.

Everything that had been bearable was now anything but. He shuddered in his hot, sticky cocoon of cushions.

She laughed. She sounded a little breathless. "I was going to say it will be easy to find you by scent, but you've just flooded the room. Have you been waiting long?"

More teeth in his lip. Stay quiet.

Yes, my love, I have been waiting seven thousand lifetimes and it is cruel of you to try to trick me into revealing myself now.

He caught himself starting to shift position, to bare his neck and raise his rear, and froze. She'd definitely have heard that rustle.

"Did you have to prepare everything without me? You did a very good job. You were right that I needed a few biological nudges." Under her words, he heard the rustle of her movements, as she started to wade through the bountiful cushions of their nesting room. Heard her sniff the air. "I'll find you." 

His alpha was _hunting_ him. The primal thrill of that shook him to the core and he couldn't suppress a whimper.

Too loud. Dammit!

"Got you," she whispered, and laid over him like the best blanket in the world. She was naked too. It wasn't always a given. Her skin was hot and damp. He really had synced her up well, in the end.

He trilled, a happy, self-satisfied heat sound, and tried to wriggle around to embrace her. 

"No. You wanted me in rut, my darling. You achieved your aim." She bit the back of his neck.

He started purring as the hot, fuzzy half-paralysis of that bite spread down his arms and legs, and purred more as she manoeuvred him exactly how she wanted him.

"There," she gasped as she settled inside him.

For a long, beautiful moment, they just stayed like that, skin to skin, as close as they could be, purring in unison. Then she started to move. Slowly at first, so slowly that he whined and tried to push back. But she sank her teeth into his neck again to halt him, then licked it soothingly.

"My good boy," she whispered. Her voice was breathless. "Let me tease myself." Her hands caressed his sides, his head. "Just a little more patience, then I'll give you what you need. Can you do that?" He nodded.

He was thick-headed and heavy-limbed with their deeply mingled scents. As much as he needed the burning ache inside him pounded into quiescence, he would put up with almost anything to stay so entwined with his so-often-elusive mate.

"I missed you," he mumbled into a pillow, after the timespan of several greedy breaths had passed.

She muttered something in Arabic that he knew full well was ruder than she would ever let herself say in Greek, and curled herself around him even more tightly.

"I missed you too. I ..." She let out a shuddering breath that Dario knew only too well, and his heartbeat thumped at his temples in frantic anticipation. "You win this time. No more teasing."

She nuzzled his back and shifted her hips. "I defy anyone to resist you. You're so beautiful. So delicious. So good." With every sentence she thrust home, until her breathing grew too ragged for even broken sentences and the sweet, hot cinnamon scent of her rut overwhelmed the usually more prominent vanilla. He relaxed under her, his alpha, his mate, and let his conscious mind slide under the primal waves of sensation and possession.


	6. Wolfe/Santi (short)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Twenty minutes later, Wolfe threw his pen down with an inadvisable amount of force. “Nic! Would you please blow your knot more quietly?”
> 
> Nic chuckled, and the sound of yet more bedsprings creaking reached Wolfe’s beleaguered ears through the open bedroom door. “Come in here and I’ll let you tell me exactly how to do it.”"
> 
> Scholar Wolfe is trying to get his very important, very necessary work done. He knows it's not technically Nic's fault he's in rut, but also, it's absolutely Nic's fault that he's not getting anything done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, this stop short of the sex, a tiny bit of oral aside. I do seem to prefer building up to Alpha/Omega sex than actually writing it. Idk. 
> 
> I really like flipping the usual power dynamics and having the alpha be the one losing their head to the mercies of their cycle. Might try this again.

Wolfe was annoyed, to put it mildly. He had two peer reviews to write, a project abstract to submit for approval, a reference to write for a departing silver-band that he didn’t actually hate, and a meeting to prepare. For tomorrow. Tomorrow was … he checked the clock. Tomorrow was already here. 

It wasn’t an impossible workload. There was a reason he’d trained his handwriting speed as intensely as he had in his postulancy. But it would be so much easier if Nic wasn’t at home in the first stages of rut. 

He kept idly touching Wolfe as he wandered around the house. It was too hot this summer night for Wolfe to have any patience with Nic’s overly warm hands pawing at him. What was Nic doing, anyway, wandering around like that? Wolfe didn’t care. Probably nesting.

The thought of having somewhere comfortable to curl up when he did eventually finish was incredibly appealing, but even that was misleading and irritating because he’d only get an hour or two if he was lucky before he’d have to be up for his nine o’clock with the Artifex. And then Nic would be free to lounge around at home in the comfortable nest and work off some of his rut into his own hand. 

Wolfe licked his lips and shook his head. That was far too distracting an image to dwell upon with so much to do. He shoved his chair back and went into the kitchen to get a drink. 

Thirst hit him as he watched the water flow from the faucet, let alone when he got it into his mouth. He downed two glasses in quick succession before his body would let him sip the third with more dignity. 

“You were thirsty.” Nic’s voice was a bass rumble, and he moved in a permanent cloud of smoky, woodsy bonfire scent that made Wolfe’s mouth water. He was only wearing light High Garda off-duty wear - the tight round-neck shirt showed off his physique and the soft trouser material did nothing to hide his constant arousal. 

Oh, why did Nic always come into rut at the least convenient times?

Wolfe pushed the glass back on the counter, against the wall, and grunted in response to Nic’s pointless comment. Best to acknowledge him. He got grumpy if he felt ignored while his rut was amping up - and Wolfe needed to ignore him as much as possible if he was going to get any work done. 

He took stock of his own state. Headache, thirsty, his hand in a constant state of half-cramp and his lower back protesting. Too hot. Did they have the damn heating on or something? 

Nothing unusual, in totality. Nothing he couldn’t work around.

He only realised that his eyes were shut and his mind was starting to drift when the touch of Nic’s hand on his wrist shocked him back to awareness. 

“You’re tired, Chris.” Nic’s hands were so hot that they helped all by themselves, but Wolfe couldn’t deny it felt particularly good when Nic started to press and massage his aching hand. 

“For the love of Amun, Nic, I know your brain is in your knot right now but could you do something other than state the blindingly obvious?”

“Mm, but it’s fun to annoy you.” Nic draped himself over Wolfe from behind, arms loosely around his belly.

“No! No it is not fun! Get off!” Wolfe flailed at Nic, to no effect other than a low chuckle that vibrated straight through them both. The heavy, hot weight of Nic leaning against him made Wolfe’s knees wobble. “Nic, I am entirely serious. I need to get this all finished for tomorrow. Go and hump a pillow or something.”

“What actually needs finished for tomorrow?” Nic’s hand started rubbing slowly up and down Wolfe’s stomach and chest. 

“Everything,” Wolfe said, gritting his teeth against how nice that felt. 

“No.” 

Wolfe’s body involuntarily quivered from that specific timbre, and he had to grasp the counter to stay steady. He could feel Nic’s erection pressing against him. 

“Don’t you dare alpha voice me!” His voice came out gratifyingly strongly. 

“Sorry.” Nic kissed the back of his neck, burrowing his face into Wolfe’s hair. His stubble scratched in a wonderful way. “I didn’t mean to. You know what I mean. You set impossible targets. Most of that won’t need done for another week, will it?”

Wolfe sighed. “Just the project abstract.”

If anything could distract Wolfe from Nic’s overwhelming presence, it was the thought of the Artifex sneering at him at nine o’clock tomorrow. His skin crawled at the very idea. 

Nic nosed at Wolfe’s raised hackles and made an unhappy sound, then tried to lick them flat again. Not the act of someone in their right mind. 

“Nic. Get off.” There. Steel back in his voice. To his relief, Nic moved backwards, only to stare at Wolfe and run his great hot hands all over Wolfe’s stomach and back like meat. His pupils were huge and Wolfe couldn’t smell anything other than his powerful scent. “You’re well into rut, my love. Go and amuse yourself.” Despite himself, he reached out to touch one of Nic’s hot, swollen neck glands, and wasn’t at all surprised when Nic enthusiastically nuzzled his wrist. 

“Well, you’re in heat, so you should come with me.” Nic sucked on Wolfe’s fingers, and it might have been as suggestive as he intended if he hadn’t said something so obviously foolish. 

“I’m not in heat.” And then, because it was a losing battle to argue with Nic when he was this far along, “And even if I was, I’ll deal with it later. I’ve got too much to do!”

“Just the project abstract, you said.” With a look of reluctance, Nic put his hands back into his pockets. Wolfe shivered at their loss. “Come to bed after that.” 

Wolfe rolled his eyes hard, even though that made his head hurt. “Ordering me around now, alpha?” He’d meant the honorific to come out sarcastically, but Nic’s eyes went even darker and he shoved his hands even further into his trouser pockets as if in response to an urge. Wolfe felt his pulse flutter in his throat in response. 

Ugh, it was all so fucking base. He had matters of a higher nature to attend to!

“After the abstract.” Nic’s brows squished together in an adorable frown. 

On a whim, Wolfe leaned up and kissed that frown. “I’ll try.”

Twenty minutes later, Wolfe threw his pen down with an inadvisable amount of force. “Nic! Would you _please_ blow your knot more _quietly_?”

Nic chuckled, and the sound of yet more bedsprings creaking reached Wolfe’s beleaguered ears through the open bedroom door. “Come in here and I’ll let you tell me exactly how to do it.”

Wolfe couldn’t help but shift in his seat at that, as arousal coiled through him. He tried to ignore it, but the movement triggered a slow slide of moisture. 

If he’d still had the pen in his hand, he would have thrown it. He debated throwing the Blank he was working with for a moment, but discarding that idea in favour of getting to his feet and storming over to the bedroom. 

“You’ve put me into sympathy heat, you bastard!” He only just made it through the sentence with his frustration intact, as he greedily drank in the sight before him. Nic was lounging on his back, gloriously naked, glistening with perspiration. 

“Told you so,” Nic said with another chuckle. He shifted his hands between his legs and let out an utterly unapologetic groan of pleasure. One hand slid up and down his shaft, while his knot was red and half swollen already under massaging ministrations from the other hand. 

That was sensible. A few full orgasms involving an alpha’s knot could bring rut to an early close. 

Sensible.

Yes. 

If Wolfe had been willing to deny his irritating state of pseudo-heat for a moment longer, that faded under the irrational possessive jealousy that swamped him in a breathless stifling wave. 

_His_ knot. 

Virtually every muscle below his shoulders clenched in anticipation.

Wolfe swallowed. “If you want me in there with you, stop doing that, for starters.”

Nic made an incoherent complaining sound through his nose and … well, Wolfe wasn’t entirely certain if ‘undulating’ could be applied to the movements of someone as well-built as Nic, but his addled mind wasn’t coming up with any better descriptors for what Nic’s hips had just done. “Was trying to speed it up. Not bother you.” 

“You have an exceedingly warped view of what it means to not bother me, my love.” Wolfe gave in and released his hold on the doorway. His feet carried him towards the bed without his say-so. “You chemically bother me just by existing.” 

Nic rubbed his face as if to clear his head a little, and eventually mumbled, “You know how to sweet-talk an alpha.”

“Was that sarcasm?” Wolfe bent down to shed his trousers and somehow ended up crawling onto the bed and taking the first few inches of Nic into his mouth instead. Nic swore and gave the most delightful moan. 

“Oh, stop making a fuss,” Wolfe said with a wicked grin.


End file.
